1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dielectric ceramic composition characterized by a high dielectric constant with decreased temperature dependency over a wide temperature range, an extremely small dissipation factor, easiness of fabrication into a ceramic, and little deterioration even under such a high electric field intensity as encountered in a multilayer ceramic capacitors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For the composition of high dielectric constant of which variation with temperature is small, there has so far been used barium titanate incorporated with a bismuth compound such as bismuth stannate, bismuth titanate, or bismuth zirconate to decrease said variation. As ceramic capacitor small in size and large in capacitance are required in recent years, multilayer ceramic capacitors has become to be more widely used. However, bismuth-containing dielectric compositions for this purpose have the drawback of remarkable corrosion which occurs on internal electrodes comprising platinum or palladium. A bismuth compound having a high vapor pressure employed as a raw material for ceramic condensers makes it extremely difficult to provide fine structural ceramics due to the vaporization of the bismuth compound during the firing for producing the ceramics. Such being the case, none of dielectric ceramic compositions have dielectric constant of more the 2000 and satisfy the requirement for small size and large capacitance.
Utsumi et al (U.S. Pat. Re No. 29,484) disclosed a system composed of barium titanate and niobium pentoxide having a high dielectric constant less dependent on temperature and a small dissipation factor. However, a ceramic multilayer capacitor made from the composition will deteriorate remarkably its electrical properties. This is caused by a high electric field intensity resulting from a small gap between the electrodes in a multilayer ceramic capacitor as shown in FIG. 2.
After comprehensive studies to provide a ceramic composition that has a high dielectric constant and does not have the above-mentioned drawbacks, the inventors of the present application have found that the addition of niobium pentoxide, zinc oxide and manganese to barium titanate gives a high dielectric constant less dependent on temperature as well as a smaller dielectric dissipation factor of the barium titanate. The inventors have further found the significance of the particle diameter of barium titanate as the principal component affecting remarkably the electrical characteristics, and have completed the present invention.
The present invention is characterized by the presence of manganese dioxide and the specified particle diameter range of barium titanate, which lead to less deterioration of electrical dissipation factor under intense electric field conditions.